Is This Really Marcel Proust in a Movie?

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Newly discovered black-and-white footage of a 1904 wedding filmed shows a glimpse of a young man with a mustache, wearing a bowler hat and formal suit, descending a flight of stairs (about 4 seconds into the footage). It's believed to be the only existing film of the French writer.Published OnFeb. 16, 2017CreditCreditCollection et Restauration CNC

A university professor has discovered silent black-and-white film footage from 1904 showing a man wearing a bowler hat descending church steps at a wedding in Paris.

The professor, Jean-Pierre Sirois-Trahan, of Laval University in Canada, discovered the film in archives in Paris, he said. The scene provides but a glimpse of the man (four seconds into the footage), but Prof. Sirois-Trahan believes it could just be the only known footage of the influential French author.

“We can never prove it beyond all doubt,” he said in an interview by email. “I try to support the hypothesis and to each decide for himself.”

He said if it indeed was Proust walking carefully down the steps, glancing from side to side, then the world would for the first time be able to see the author in the powerful medium of film, which he said brings the past “alive.”

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Though many photos like this one exist of Marcel Proust, a professor believes he has found the only film footage of the French novelist.

Professor William C. Carter, author of a Proust biography, said that Proust, who died in 1922 at 51, would have been 34 at the time of the film. He said Proust was known to have attended the wedding in Paris. While there exist many photographs of Proust, there is no recording of the author’s voice and no known film footage, he said.

“It would be very important that we have this brief image of Proust in motion,” he said. Several experts had contacted him and were convinced it is Proust, he said, but he is not so sure.

“We would all like that to be Proust,” he said. “I am not saying it’s not Proust. It would be helpful if we could see his eyes or his hair.”

He said the man shown on the film looked a little too young for 34.

Professor Sirois-Trahan said the marriage was of a friend of Proust, Armand de Guiche, with Elaine Greffulhe, in the church of the Madeleine in Paris.

According to the British Times Literary Supplement, Elaine was daughter of the Count and the Countess Greffulhe, who is said to have been an inspiration for the Duchess of Guermantes in Proust’s novel.